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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27073600">we're at the end of the line</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/angelfishofthelord/pseuds/angelfishofthelord'>angelfishofthelord</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Supernatural</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angel Castiel (Supernatural), Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst with a Happy Ending, Castiel Gets a Hug (Supernatural), Castiel Talks About Feelings (Supernatural), Castiel-centric (Supernatural), Castiel/Dean Winchester if that's how you see them, Dean Winchester Talks About Feelings, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode Fix-it, Episode: s15e15 Gimme Shelter, Gen, How Supernatural (TV) Could End, I don't know what I'm doing, Maybe - Freeform, My First Fanfic, No Slash, No Spoilers, One Shot, POV Dean Winchester, POV First Person, Season/Series 15 Speculation, Self-Esteem Issues, Team Free Will (Supernatural), hope is all the happiness we get in this show, it could even be Sam and Cas if you want, someone save our trenchcoated angel, this is an open sea and you can sail whatever ship you want, we all need more hugs, well more like entire show fix-it</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-09 01:01:08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,151</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27073600</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/angelfishofthelord/pseuds/angelfishofthelord</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“I’m going to save the world.” Your eyes are shining, bright in beauty that doesn’t belong. No one should be hallowed such an aura of euphoria when carrying the knowledge of their imminent sacrifice.</p><p>“You’re going to die,” I say numbly, pointing it out like a soup stain on someone’s collar. It should drop off my tongue with a thud, the words should have enough gravity to drag me to my knees but instead I just stand there, arms swaying and body pitching slightly to the side.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Castiel &amp; Dean Winchester, Castiel/Dean Winchester</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>9</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>29</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>we're at the end of the line</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Foreword: This is my first ever Supernatural fanfic to write, much less share. I read A LOT of Supernatural fanfiction and I'm inspired by the aesthetics and literary devices and writing techniques I read there to write short stories with original characters but I've never tried to write my own fanfic. It's daunting to step into a skin someone else has already sewn and I admire the hell out of all you fanfic writers. </p><p>But the last episode, S15E15, made me think about how the show might end and who might end up sacrificing themselves and that, coupled with listening a gorgeous and terribly angsty Isak Danielson song, made me write this drabble. I hope I did these characters a smidgen of the justice they deserve. I hope this little story splinters a few cracks in your heart because I'm still picking up the pieces of my own.</p><p>Story title inspired by said <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qyGWyFnFC0">Isak Danielson song</a></p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p>“I’m going to save the world.” Your eyes are shining, bright in beauty that doesn’t belong. No one should be hallowed such an aura of euphoria when carrying the knowledge of their imminent sacrifice.</p><p>“You’re going to die,” I say numbly, pointing it out like a soup stain on someone’s collar. It should drop off my tongue with a thud, the words should have enough gravity to drag me to my knees but instead I just stand there, arms swaying and body pitching slightly to the side.</p><p>I look at you and I don’t see you.</p><p>I see right through you to the black of the bunker hallway behind you. There are rooms down that hall, walls and bed sheets and lamps and chairs, all building a home and all now crouched in expectant darkness. They are bracing themselves for being surrounded by the empty of a world without you.</p><p>The hallway light switch is right next to me. I should turn it on. I should move and turn it on but my feet refuse to lift from the ground.</p><p>“I’m going to save the world,” you repeat, as if the dying part is a footnote. It’s the mild headache from taking the antibiotics that heal the disease, it’s the occasional itch from the stitches that seal the gash. “Think about it, millions of people,” you go on and somehow the hallway seems to shrink, closing in on either side of you. Everything is becoming smaller the wider you expand your reach. You’re talking about parks, and children, and families, and festivals, and cities, visions of the future falling out of your mouth like confetti at a funeral.</p><p>All I see are the few inches between the hallway shadows and you, and how the light switch is crawling off the wall and away from me. </p><p>“Besides,” the word hovers mid air for a second and you shrug, trying to elevate it again. “This world never really had a space for me.”</p><p>Suddenly there’s no space between the light switch at all. There’s no space between us. I feel the fabric of your shirt twisting between my fingers and look down to notice that I’ve grabbed you. I’m anchoring you to an earth that you will soon rest beneath. I’m trying to keep you above air when you’ve already drowned, but I say it anyways. “You always had--your place is with us. We’ll always have a space for you. This is your home. You belong here, with us.”</p><p>“I know,” you say, but it sounds like the fading notes of a symphony and not the crescendo. You smile, or try to, and I’ve never seen a more broken curve. “Will you. ..” you lower voice, suddenly timid. “Will you keep that space for me, even when I’m not around? I’d like--” your eyes fall to the ground, mapping out the inches that will soon embalm you “--I’d like to think that I could--” your lips twitch on the syllables“--exist, to someone, even after this body doesn’t anymore.”</p><p>The fear and shame that ripples through you is so thick it’s solid. It shoots out a hand and chokes me.</p><p>That’s when I walk away. I push away from your arm that I’ve been clinging to with a tightness that leaves marks. My footsteps abandon your bowed head to the threat of the hallway. The floorboards murmur at my hurrying steps but I can’t stop myself. I can’t face at you and know that the thought has crossed your mind that we might not remember you. That after all these years you still reduce yourself to a corner of the room when you belong in the middle. That you should ask for much so more but you can barely bring yourself to claim a fleeting memory in our mortal minds.</p><p>You could ask me for anything, you know that by now. You said you know.  </p><p>Halfway across the room, your slumped frame reduced to a mere half echo behind me, I realize that what seems like a request paltry and inadequate to me is actually mammoth to you. Because you’ve never asked for anything for yourself. Life has brutalized you with tragedy after tragedy, and you’ve never once asked to be saved, to be delivered. To be held after it cut you in two, or to be comforted after it robbed you of lungs to breath. You have bled for the unworthy and stripped yourself of bone and marrow for the undeserving, and never taken a single band aid for the river of wounds burning through you.</p><p>But now.</p><p>Now you’re letting yourself be selfish and it terrifies you.</p><p>You’re ashamed at having a thought that circles around you and no one else.</p><p>You’ve never allowed yourself to want anything that wasn’t for someone else. You’re not sure how it’s supposed to feel, if it’s weak or wrong, and by fleeing from your confession I’ve just made sure that it felt that way to you, when nothing could be further from the truth.</p><p>Now I’m running back across the distance, I’m pulling you into my arms, I’m hearing the tears slipping through my words as I tell you over and over again that we won’t forget you. I won’t forget you. I’ll fill spaces with you, I’ll create worlds for memories of you to grow and flourish. I’ll share your stories with strangers and saints and sinners. You will live a hundred different lives that give birth to more lives. You will overflow into every corner of this world you’ve died to save.</p><p>You relax against my chest, and I hold on even tighter. The eyeless black face of the hallway stares back at me and shadows still plaster the floor tiles and walls but I don’t need to reach that light switch. There’s no dark that could ever diminish the light of you.</p><p>God made a mistake when He created you. He thought He was making a lesser being, but you are better than your Father. You love the way God wishes he could.  </p><p>How could a heart as vast yours ever not have a space in this world? This world is in the wrong shape. I will teach it to hold you. I will wrap it around the threads of you and we will teach it your colors until the sky learns to wear your coat from dawn to twilight.</p><p>“You’re going to save the world.” The words break from my trembling lips and this time it is not spoken in a whip of anger or cracked with the hook of a question mark. It’s a prayer, one that I find myself praying over and over until I find revelation, until I hear nothing but the first and last words of that line.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>You. </em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <em>World. </em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>That’s when I understand. You are the world. <em>Our</em> world.</p><p> </p><p>And I’m going to save you.</p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Leave a comment if you think this should have been written in third person? I struggle with choosing the right POV and wasn't sure first person worked well here. If you enjoyed this odd writing style of mine let me know and I might try and write more of these little scenes for s15.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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